


FACE VALUE

by soffgluten



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Dark Past, Introspection, Mild Gore, Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:07:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14225790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soffgluten/pseuds/soffgluten
Summary: Flug is not an honest man.





	FACE VALUE

**Author's Note:**

> beta'ed by the wonderful [ShittyDinner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShittyDinner/)
> 
> accompanying fic art - https://villaill.tumblr.com/post/172639872804/companion-sketch-piece-to-my-one-shot-face-value

Flug is not an honest man.

 

Well, not exactly.

 

He is hard-working. Hours, spilling into days, spent in the cool metal confines of his lab instead of outside prove his dedication. To his eyes, the bleary grey is a soothing image - the way the sparks of his torch make the surface glint reminds him of the feeling of playfulness, as if the walls were inviting him to dance joyfully to the cacophony of his creations. The tables strewn about the room are full of them, the once-white surface of many stained by garish colours of his lethal concoctions. Next to the stains lay the beakers the former liquids were once in, glass stainless and standing upright next to some mechanical device or another. Flug doesn't really have a trade, he does it all - architecture, machinery, lethal poisons, gases and bioweapons. The possibilities are endless when you're in the villains' trade - and Flug takes every advantage of the fact. The evidence all lies within his very lab and the way it is set up.

 

Demencia would probably either describe his laboratory as "a fun, exciting playground!" or "a boring box", depending on the day. His victims, however, would respond with something a little bit bleaker every time.

 

Flug is also very diligent. He double-checks, triple-checks schematics and formulas, equations and circuits - all for his creations to get destroyed or end up being used for evil. He perseveres, more through the first than the second, but in the end he thinks "it's okay". He's not upset - can't be, really, not when Black Hat is around to scold him for crying on set - but it all boils down to learning from his mistakes and improving. After every failed experiment or broken device, he scours every ounce of data he can from the incident and improves upon his contraptions. Most of them, despite his constant improvements, don't live to see the day - but those which do are sold off for a high cost.

 

What happens with them afterwards, Flug doesn't know and, frankly, doesn't care about, but the fact his inventions were desired enough to spend millions on acquiring them gives him a tired smile on his face after a grueling day of lab work, and an ever so tiny shred of confidence boost... Only for it to be spat on by Black Hat. He perseveres, diligently, because he knows - even if Black Hat claims otherwise - Black Hat Org. wouldn't be what it is without him. Not anymore.

 

Were Black Hat Org. to come upon a financial crisis, it would be Flug who would handle the math and financials. Were the online servers to crash on them, Flug would be the one to fix them. Were there a broken pipe or leak or broken machinery within the mansion, Flug would be the one to fix it. For all of Black Hat's shows of power and his flaunting of eldritch powers, he is able to do very little concerning broken contraptions and modern devices - this is where Flug's prominence shines through, and where Black Hat, albeit unwillingly, admits his usefulness.

 

That is what Flug loves the most. He, for all his cowardice and weak words and antisocial ways, is useful. Next to sharp syringe needles and deadly lasers, his usefulness must be the greatest weapon he has on him. While he may suffer occasional failures - as most, if not all creators do - and faces sharper consequences due to the fact, his weapons give him almost unbreakable protection. Not only against Black Hat (for Flug must be kept alive and in working condition at all times in order to keep Black Hat Org. running), but against the world as a whole. Throwing him away would be a waste. Society has no option but to acknowledge and make use of him.

 

So he's hard-working, diligent, and useful. Honest would commonly be the next adjective used to describe a person like himself. He has all the characteristics of an "honest, good-working man" and all that.

 

But Flug is not an honest man.

 

First, it's the life before the accident. He doesn't dwell much on it - almost doesn't think at all, save for when Black Hat mentions an off-hand thing from his school days so long ago. But it's the first thing he's buried deep, deep within a trench no one else will explore. It's one of the first things he lies about. The second thing is his face. He probably hasn't looked properly at himself for a few years now. There's no need to - not when all he sees day in, day out are his hands. To him, hands mean everything and make a person’s accomplishments. His career is built from the things his very hands made. So when he hides his tired expressions from the world with his hands, he lies. He can't remember what colour his eyes used to be nor the shape of his lips or the curl of his hair. The third thing he lies about is perhaps his own identity. He's not had much time to explore it before the accident, what with his rising accomplishments as a young scientist and that. In the hospital, and even after he'd been discharged, he's had a lot of time for self-reflection. The impulse to hide himself from the world that had been apparent from his childhood presented itself then more than ever. Over time he had managed to unearth at least a part of the reasoning behind it. Now that people couldn't see his face, they couldn't make any assumptions about him. Not his gender, age, his feelings or anything of the sort. It gave him a little bit of a boost, to be honest, something to hold over other people's heads. He was "mysterious", apparently, and was using the label to his advantage. It was always fun to fuck with people’s perceptions, especially regarding something that they could never have a clear perception of. Nothing except the rough brown of his paper bag or his trusty black goggles.

 

The greatest thrill, to him, was lying to people about something they'd never take for anything but granted. He has never had to sabotage his own inventions before, but would all-too-happily feed devastatingly wrong device instructions to unsuspecting clients who needed to be taken out of the scene. In Black Hat's words, they were "infuriatingly annoying" and "should be throwing themselves at him for not unleashing unimaginable horrors upon them."

 

That is the thrill that electrifyingly encompasses Flug as he watches tears trickle over his victim’s face, betrayed eyes now hazy with pain and death as he sweetly turns the knife around their ruined insides, red spraying onto his beloved grey floors and over his comforting steel walls.

**Author's Note:**

> i've never actually written or published fanfiction before, so i hope this is good for a first try!
> 
> find my (old) villainous stuff on tumblr:  
> villaill.tumblr.com


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